Selling Your Startup

9The Communication Process with Buyers

What are the best practices for communicating with potential acquirers of your business and carrying those conversations over the finish line—or at least, to the next phase of real negotiations and making a deal?

This can be a very delicate process, where every word matters when it comes to offers and negotiations. This is also a period in which you can completely blow great opportunities or create surprisingly good outcomes.

This stage is about carefully nurturing potential interest in an M&A transaction, ensuring you are engaging with and speaking to the right people, and identifying the real motivations of a potential buyer and how you can position a deal for the maximum results.

Liabilities and Responsibilities

At this stage of a venture, these conversations and deals are no longer about you and your personal finances.

You may definitely have a voice and vote and the option to negotiate a fair and attractive exit package for yourself as a shareholder.

Yet, if you have cofounders, equity investors, creditors, and others with stock options, the equation becomes about them and the health and benefit of the corporation itself.

There can be serious legal responsibilities, with legal liability for mistakes made, negligence, and failing to act in line with your assumed fiduciary responsibility.

Even without other legal shareholders, you may feel a responsibility to your employees, customers, and other supporters who have backed your mission. ...